Tiffany Tumbles: Book One of the Interim Fates (16 page)

Daddy shrugs and walks around the small area that’s not frozen. He doesn’t even look at Baby Me. Except for the time when he was pointing at me, he hasn’t looked at Baby Me at all.

Mom shifts Baby Me to her shoulder, but keeps my hands wrapped in that blanket. She looks intent.

“You stay because you’re afraid of her, aren’t you?”

Daddy bows his head.

“Is she more powerful than you?”

He roars—which I’ve only heard him do a few times. It means he’s really angry.

“No one’s more powerful than me,” he says.

“Prove it,” Mom says. “Give me custody of my daughter. Give me the magic to raise her. And if you won’t do that, take me with her. Ignore your wife.”

Daddy walks over to Mom and—still not looking at Baby Me—touches her head. He heals the burns and restores her cornrows. Her eyes fill with tears.

“She’s better off with me,” he says.

Mom doesn’t blink. I recognize that move. I use it when I don’t want the tears to fall either; when I’m hoping no one notices they’re even in my eyes.

“How’s this?” Daddy asks. “How about you spend summers with us? I’ll find a way to keep her away from Hera during that time.”

“How about you keep your wife away from her all the time?” Mom says. “How about keeping my daughter with me?”

Daddy shakes his head. “If I had more control of the Powers That Be, I’d do that. But I can’t. Summers is the best I can do.”

Then he unwraps the blanket around me. My little baby fingers are fried at the tips. He shows that to Mom.

She gasps and the tears do fall. She cradles me against her and rocks.

Daddy lets that happen for a few minutes. Then Mom bundles me up and hands me to him.

“Let me see her whenever I want,” she says.

He shakes his head.

“Then give me private time with her in the summers,” Mom says. “Away from you people and your magic. Find a way to do it.”

He looks at her with something like compassion. I say “something like” because in all the years I’ve known Daddy, he’s never really shown real compassion.

“I can do that,” he says, and then he vanishes.

With Baby Me.

Leaving Mom alone in the middle of a frozen scene—fires not quite burning, people not quite moving, water not quite falling.

She looks at it, and then it activates again, and the paramedic is saying, “…you all right, ma’am? Are you all right?”

And she shakes her head. “My baby,” she says.

“Is it inside, ma’am?”

And it becomes clear to her—and to me—that the paramedic doesn’t remember Baby Me. No one else seems to. Just Mom, who sits there, like she’s been burned really bad.

Only Daddy removed all the burns.

And he removed me too.

And Mom didn’t fight it.

Because she couldn’t.

He bamboozled her, just like he bamboozles everybody else.

The scene is fading. I’m staring at Mom, her eyes the eyes I remember—not young and frightened, but old and resigned. And then she disappears, and there’s only Daddy, looking just the same, standing in front of that smoke stain.

“See?” he says. “She gave you away.”

“You didn’t give her much choice,” I say.

“You’d’ve killed her, given a few more weeks,” Daddy says.

“She was right,” I snap. “You could’ve broken the rules.”

“Ah, sweetheart.” He sits back down on that white chair. “Why do you think I fought the real Fates? Tried to get you girls to take over? The Fates enforce the magical laws. I nearly got nailed just for that little bit of interference. Imagine what would have happened if I had given your mom what she wanted.”

I look back at the stain. Raised here? With magic? I can’t imagine it. This is a completely different world.

I’d know everybody since they were little, just like Olivia, and I’d know if Josh was really interested, and I’d understand American history.

“Let’s give you a taste of it,” Daddy says.

He opens his fist. There’s a vial inside, and inside the vial is a drop of liquid. He floats the vial to me.

“What’re you doing?” I ask.

The vial opens itself, and tilts. I back away, but the vial follows.

“What are you doing?” I ask again.

The drop falls out of the vial and lands on my leg. It burns for a minute, then disappears. My stomach settles down immediately.

“What did you do?” I ask.

Daddy grins. “I gave you some of your magic back.”

“But that’s breaking the rules,” I say.

“It’s so small, no one’ll notice,” he says.

“I notice,” I say. But I feel better. A little stronger.

“You’ll get one spell out of that,” he says. “A weak one. Or two wishes. So be careful what you’re thinking.”

“Daddy, I promised I wouldn’t use magic.”

“So blame me. You always do anyway.”

He grins. I don’t like that grin.

“Daddy,” I say, “I gave my word.”

“So?” he says. “That only means something to someone who cares.”

“
I
care,” I say.

His grin widens. “Then don’t use the magic,” he says, and vanishes.

FOURTEEN

DON’T USE THE
magic? That’s like handing a starving person food and telling her not to eat. I pound the pillow with my fist.

“Daddy!” I shout. “Get back here! Now!”

But he doesn’t come back. I yell until I’m hoarse, but he never reappears.

Even though I know he’s listening.

And probably laughing.

I stand up. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I know what I should do. I should tell Mom and have her get Megan. Not that Megan has the kind of magic that’ll get rid of this drop Daddy’s given me, but she’ll know someone who can.

But I don’t want to do that because that means Mom’ll know I talked to Dad, and that’ll just cause a scene. I’ve caused scenes—with Daddy—and I hate them. But that’s what I’m good at, or so he says.

Then I frown. He asked me how come I’m always hard on him. Is he doing this to me because of that? Is he testing me? Is that why he showed me that bit of the past with Mom? Does he want to turn me against her or show me how powerful I was?

Because I know he was lying to her. He didn’t want to raise me—he
didn’t
raise me. He let other people do it—he just wanted me in his control.

This is probably about that too. Me being in his control. Because until this afternoon, I wasn’t in his control.

I get off the bed and pace around the bedroom. Outside, the scene is different than it was when I was a baby. The people across the street painted their house white, so now it glitters in the sunlight. The sun is bright and strong. The tree beneath my window is still green. The street is still pretty empty.

It’s not that much later than it was when Daddy got here. Maybe it’s no later. Maybe he froze time with me, just like he did that time with Mom.

And now I’m mad. I went from what I thought was calm to pissed off in like three seconds. I want to throw things around the room. I want to break that chair he sat on because he touched it.

How come he put me in this position? I mean, I understand the control part (Megan’s only been harping on that from the beginning) but now I have a dilemma—and it’s not the kind of dilemma I’ve been expecting or even living through.

It’s multifaceted. It’s huge. It goes like this:

If I use the magic, am I giving in to Daddy? Am I giving into my worst self? I am breaking my word, aren’t I? Even though I agreed to have the magic taken away—and that happened—I didn’t agree not to get it again. In fact, I gave it away with the express understanding that it would come back one day. This just isn’t the one day I’m expecting.

Do I tell anyone? Mom’ll be mad. Megan’ll be mad and she’ll confront Dad. If I tell Brittany or Crystal, they might be mad, especially if Daddy
didn’t
give them a drop of magic. Megan says this is the kind of chaos that Daddy loves. If I tell people, do I give into that?

But if I don’t tell people, am I doing what Daddy wants? Megan says dysfunctional families always have secrets from each other. Of course, she told me this while agreeing that I have to lie to all the mortals I meet, which gives her the moral authority of a rotting donut, in my mind. I just talk to her because…well, because she’s the first person who ever really listened to me, or Brittany, or Crystal, and she actually did help us, back when we were Interim Fates and supposed to be in charge of everything. Of course, we were in charge of everything except Daddy and the stuff he didn’t want us in charge of, which is different from the real Fates, who have their powers back and now can control Daddy, which probably pisses him off.

Is that why he came to me? Is he making some new power play? If so, I have no idea how I’m involved. He’s probably just irritated that he has nothing to mess with, so he’s trying to mess with the thing that screwed up his plan to take over the universe—namely, me, Brittany, and Crystal.

I sit on the edge of the bed. The more I think about the three of us screwing Daddy up, the more I think I’m onto something. Daddy doesn’t get mad. He gets even.

And because we didn’t perform well as Interim Fates—heck, we weren’t even good mages. (I still don’t know why us out of all his kids—I mean, there were actually older kids who’re better at magic, but still young enough to be influenced by him; and younger kids who could’ve been molded more.)
He
said it was because he liked us best, but it’s Daddy. He probably says that to all his kids.

Stupid me, I believed him then.

And I believed him earlier when he told me that he’s doing this because he cares about me.

Just like he told Mom he would raise me.

What did Megan say as she helped the Powers That Be thwart Daddy’s plans and make him listen to us in that first therapy session? She said that Daddy doesn’t understand the finer emotions like love.

He showed me all that stuff about Mom, thinking I’d fall for the logic, not realizing that I saw the love and terror in her eyes. He thought I’d agree with what he did (because he’s so egotistical, he can’t think anything else). He didn’t have a clue that I’d actually feel sorry for Mom.

I mean, what was it like, giving up your baby? Especially to a magical nutball like Dad?

I rub my hand over my face. I don’t even want to think about that. I don’t want to think about any of this—and I get mad all over again.

Dad’s put me in this position.

So…

If I wish my way out of it, asking that the drop leave my body, am I doing magic? Am I giving into Dad’s stupid plan? Is that what he expects me to do?

I growl and fall backwards on the bed. I actually have the beginnings of a headache.

As if school isn’t bad enough. As if learning how to navigate this silly town isn’t hard enough. As if learning how to do all the practical stuff that Mom says most humans learn as children isn’t embarrassing enough.

Now I have to cope with this—and broken promises—and Daddy.

That’s what’s making me maddest of all. I kinda thought I wouldn’t have to deal with Daddy for a while.

Maybe that’s why I agreed to live with Mom and go through all this stupid rigmarole and learn how to be mortal even though I know I’m not, and learn how to do the stuff that servants do, even though I’ll have them when I get magic again.

I’ve been lying to myself. I don’t want to go back home. Not Mount Olympus home. Because with all the troubles I’ve had here, none of them are as mind-bogglingly difficult as dealing with the manipulative minefield that is Daddy.

And then he has to go and show up here.

Screwing me all up.

Okay. I need a plan.

And here are my options in shorthand:

Tell Mom.

Tell Megan.

Tell Brittany and Crystal.

Make Daddy take the magic back somehow.

Wish the magic away.

Use the damn thing and forget about it.

And here are the reasons I can’t do any of that:

Mom—I shake my head. I can’t. I just can’t tell her. She’ll be so upset.

Megan’ll tell Daddy and confront him, and then he’ll just be mad. Things’ll get worse because Megan doesn’t have the power to defend me or Mom.

Brittany and Crystal might not have had this opportunity, and they might be hurt/mad. Besides, when they have problems, they come to me. I never go to them. I’m smarter than both of them combined—or at least, that’s the role I was given (according to Megan; which kinda hurt my feelings when she said that, truth be told).

Make Daddy take the magic back—like that’ll happen.

Wish the magic away—which means I’ve used it. Hello! That’s what he wants.